Just a follow-up on Wendy’s method - this is very simple, easy in hex, a bit more of a pain in Carrara, but doable.

Draw your squiggly curve - be sure the ends are closed. Copy/paste and expand the copy until it completely surrounds the original, with some decent space between the nearest points. Square off the sides, making sure not to get any cross-overs - this is the easy part in Hex and the pain in Carrara - maybe someone can give a simple method? Do a Ruled Surface and shrink the outside square to the size needed. All quads, no messy n-gons or tri’s.

It’s some more super awesome software that makes super awesome models that nobody really needs, and also gives guys another excuse to play with cool software instead of learning how to model in the first place.

Basically a super boolean application where you combine simple objects using booleans to get cool complex shapes that look cool.

I have never gotten a boolean to work in anything other than the app it was modeled in. When I boolean in Carrara or Hex, it looks like crap in DAZStudio and Poser.

One of the many reasons why professionals tend to avoid booleans like the plague. Booleans cause weird polygons, and different apps handle them differently. Non-planars, n-gons, normals, etc., can be handled differently when modelling and rendering and all other stuff in different apps. So if you are in a professional environment where you use multiple apps to do different stuff, booleans are evil.

But probably for most people here who work in one app, and who like the ease of using booleans, it might be fine.

Personally, I almost never use them. I hate em. But interior circular holes on throwaway objects are one of those cases where I tend to use a boolean, but wince while I’m doing it. And I can’t look at myself in the mirror afterwards.

Funny, I used to get a lot of flack from folks here when I ranted about how bad booleans are, and now we’re actually getting people who are becoming strict anti-booleans. Cool.

Fully agree with Joe here - Boolean is basically nothing other than a short cut to something you could do better by proper modelling techniques and a bit of planning. Holes? Make the hole and build the mesh around it.

One very good application of Boolean in Hex is using it to cut complex shapes from curves. Another - and I’ll challenge anyone to do this without Boolean - is to use text to make an engraving - such as in a headstone. But how often are we called on to make engraved headstones?

Fully agree with Joe here - Boolean is basically nothing other than a short cut to something you could do better by proper modelling techniques and a bit of planning. Holes? Make the hole and build the mesh around it.

In the vast majority of cases, yes, you could get a nicer result by using something other than booleans.

However, I don’t think everyone realizes WHY booleans are (or at least can be) bad. And for amateur/hobbyists, those reasons may not apply. But as a general work practice, professionals don’t like them for the reasons I mentioned, plus a bunch more.

One reason is because you can easily generate polygons that can cause troubles, either in your own app, or when exporting to another app. It might surprise some here, but not all apps handle polygons the same way. How they handle them can vary, and there’s no “right” way. It can involve some tradeoffs or design decisions.

For example, if your modelling generates n-gons, such as with 3DAge’s method of drawing out and extruding the faceplate with holes in it, you could have problems. Some apps don’t accept n-gons on import, such as Carrara. It converts n-gons to triangles. So you can make a nice looking shape in one app, and when it gets to the other you get a trashy mess of weird triangles. Good modelling practice? Well, not much you can do. And handling n-gons is often fraught with other problems. How do you subdivide them? Some algorithms required quads for subdivision. What they gonna do with an n-gon?

So whether you generate n-gons with boolean operations, or with a “draw out and extrude” operation, you could have the exact same problems.

Booleans can also cause non-planar polygons that don’t render correctly in some apps. A triangle can’t be non-planar, but any polygon with 4 or more vertices (including n-gons) can be. So whether you generate a non-planar n-gon with booleans or with extruded spline modelling or whatever, you could have problems. If you have a quad polygon with 4 vertices, and you move any one of those vertices a micro-meter away from planar, you have a non-planar polygon. So what happens if you move two opposing vertices of the quad poly to form a sort of inverted V? How does the program and renderer handle it? Should it convert the quad to two tris like some apps do? Or should it just not render the poly and leave a black hole, like Blender and Lightwave and others do (if I’m remembering my apps correctly). There’s no “right” answer. Now with an n-gon with 36 vertices, you have a whole lot more chances to make that a non-planar polygon, and what is the program gonna do with that mess when you start moving vertices? Probably why Carrara converts n-gons to tris, to get rid of the hassle.

Which is why I start just about all of my modelling with a primitive box (“box modelling”) and modify from there. You know you have clean, planar, uniform polygons, and you just make sure you apply clean operations that don’t generate bad stuff along the way. Anything else you do leaves you open to generating bad polygons, which may or may not cause problems depending on what you do with them.

I guess the point is, boolean operations themselves aren’t bad, it’s what they generate that can be bad. So if you’re generating the same stuff using other techniques, it’s still bad. Or at least can be bad, depending. But there are cases where you’re not gonna generate an ideal mesh no matter how you handle it.

By the way, Roy, I’m fascinated by your idea of making a hole and building a mesh around it. I assume that was a joke, or do you have a cool modelling technique?

Just to clarify, I’m not having a go at any individual here. just the advice.

The points that got me were the advice to use Hexagon, and the presumption that Carrara wasn’t capable of modelling an object like this.

That’s clearly wrong advice, and perhaps more importantly, it doesn’t help the customer to learn anything about the software they’ve bought. (other than it’s not good enough) or how to approach a Modelling / Texturing issue like this, where there are several better and simpler methods of accomplishing the same effect without using Booleans.

Wendy,
Using the Bridge and Fill tools is something I often use since it gives you more control to specify what gets joined to where.
even although it takes a little bit longer to do,. some things are worth taking time with.
I also think it helps you think outside the box and look for different solutions, and that’s a really Big chunk of what you need to do in modelling and designing.

Joe,
Yes,. I agree with most of what you’ve said. but not with the points that Carrara’s modeller sucks, and,.. Use Hexagon.

Hexagon is a decent modeller, but Carrara has several adequate modelling tools and the OP is asking how to do this in Carrara.
It’s also not a problem to which Boolean is the best answer, which is actually the main question.

I’m not getting at you or Wendy personally, so please don’t take it that way.

I’m saying that Yes, this can be done in Carrara, and No, Boolean isn’t the best approach.

Also, having additional vector drawing and photo editing tools are (for me) essential to the design process, and many “budget” programs now come with the ability to create Vector shapes, and export the results as EPS or AI.

ok Andy, did not think you were having a go at me but until I posted images I did suspect you thought I had no idea what I was ranting on about!
basically the same as Roygee’s idea, create objects around the hole!
and yes Joe, ironically using my method and Carrara text converted to “other modeller” in the vertex room I have done an engraved tombstone!!!
was actually sort of how I first came to do i!!!
I DID infact first do it making a Carrara block with a chipped corner!!!

I’m saying that Yes, this can be done in Carrara, and No, Boolean isn’t the best approach.

Of course, you can do any modelling you want in Carrara. The question is, when faced with a modelling task, what’s the best way to go about it? You’re convinced that, in this case, a boolean is not the way to do it. No real reasons given, just a statement. I gave many reasons why your method is no better than a boolean. I showed an example of how a boolean can work fine for what he wants, and it UV maps okay and renders okay, and can be done very quickly. You discard all that and stick to your guns. That’s fine, and what I expected.

I don’t work for DAZ, and I have no need to steer everyone to solving their problems in Carrara. Apparently you do. Well, except for expecting people to do it in an external vector drawing program. Again, that’s fine. But that’s no need to discard some very well thought out and presented information on modelling technique that professionals use and consider, and instead make blanket statements that everyone else is wrong.

Like I said, in some cases, such as this, there is no “good” or “ideal” way to do it. It’s a very difficult mesh to generate cleanly and without n-gons and other somewhat undesirable polygons.

You and your “common, standard procedures” that are neither common nor standard

Roy, you’ve gotta stop reading stuff on the internet or wherever and taking it as gospel.

Yes, that’s an interesting approach, but to do that for what the OP is describing seems like a lot more work than is needed. For a faceplate that you need to punch holes in at specific locations, doing it that way would take forever. Yes, it would probably give you a much cleaner mesh when you’re all done. But as compared to the boolean method, which can be done in a few minutes at most, doing it from the inside out could take an hour or so. Squaring the circular extrusion, joining mesh, measuring hole-to-hole distances, matching to a plate mesh, etc. Wow, it gives me a headache just thinking about it. Even with a template in the background, the task seems, well, annoying.

OK - first off - it is a very well-known and commonly used procedure - nothing read on the internet.

Secondly, it is very fast to do for those who know what they are doing.

Thirdly, as you say, it does give a cleaner mesh - and will export correctly into any rendering application - unlike the Boolean method, which you yourself said is avoided by professionals for the very reason that they often only work in the application they were made in.

Fourthly, this was not in response to the OP’s question, but in response to your incredulity - although it is applicable to his/her question.

Fifthly - when I am forced to use Booleans for any reason, I always clean up the mess, as any modeller should do to make it acceptable to any application and spending time getting it right first time is better than wasting a lot of time later cleaning it up

Awww, come on Roy, no need to get upset. Just give a reasoned explanation as to why it’s a really good method. I spent my time giving a really good explanation of the downsides of booleans, so you can do the same for your method. And I promise, if it turns out to be take not much longer than doing booleans, then I’ll be the first to stand an applaud your method. But don’t be like other folks here who just proclaim something to be true with no rationale, then get angry when someone challenges you.

Granted, it is probably the only way to get a nice clean mesh. And I never even considered using that method. So it has a lot going for it. You just need to explain how to generate something like the image I posted with that method, and show that it doesn’t take a week to do it. And explain how you “just square off the circular extrusion”. I don’t get it. But that doesn’t mean I’m right, you could have a great method there, and I really would love to learn about it if it’s workable.

So don’t be a grumpy Gus, big fella. We’re buddies right? Well, buddy, I’m rooting for ya !! Let’s see if we can come up with a really cool method to do this.